"But now we are on the 'sacred soil,'" Jack cries, as the company debouched from the bridge up the steep, narrow road that seemed to be taking them to Arlington. In spite of the burning heat and the exhaustion of the three hours' march, the scene was, or rather the imagination of the men, invested each step with a sort of awe. They were at last in the enemy's territory. It had been held by the Union forces, only by dint of large numbers and strong fortifications. There wasn't a man in the company that didn't resent the fact, constantly obtruding itself on the ranks as they marched eagerly onward by every knoll, every bush in the landscape, that Union soldiers had been there before them! that their devouring eyes were not the first to mark these historic spots. Tired as they were and burdensome as the heavy knapsacks and still heavier ammunition had become, they heard an aide give the order to bivouac with chagrin! They so longed to put undebatable ground behind them and really be where the distant coppice might be a curtain to the enemy! The Caribees marked with indignant surprise that, when they had turned into a field about seven o'clock, the long line following them pushed onward until far into the night, and they envied the contiguity this would give the lucky laggards to first see and engage the enemy! But they turned-to very merrily, in this first night of real soldiering. They were "in the field." All the parade part of military life was now relaxed. The hot little dress coats were left behind; there was no display. Even guard-mount was reduced to the simplest possible form. With one impulse all the men--that is, all who had been alert enough to provide pen and paper--bestowed themselves about the candles allotted each group, and began letters "home," dated magniloquently "Headquarters in the Field. Tyler's Division, Sherman's Brigade, 16th July, 1861." The imperial impulse manifested itself in these curt epistles. I can't resist giving Jack's: